I haven’t written about my passion for food before on this blog, but if you didn’t know; I love food. Homemade meals are my favorite thing ever, and goodness knows what I am going to do when I have to leave for college. I hope this post will be the beginning of many posts about my food adventures as I try new recipes and dishes. My english teacher encourages us to always “try the peanut butter pie” meaning if you are given the choice between trying/eating/doing/etc. something you know you like and something unknown, to try the unknown because that is how you develop new favorite things. Thus, this new section of Life as a Fish out of Water will be called “Trying the Peanut Butter Pie” and it will represent the adventurous foodie side of me.

I have hated sweet potatoes for as long as I can remember. Every year on Thanksgiving, I would eat a mandatory tablespoon size bite of them, just to avoid “the look” from my mother and to respect my grandma, who lovingly made them every year, much to my dismay. My grandma loved them, to her they were the best thing about Thanksgiving(food wise anyway, family was always her favorite aspect of the holidays). I never understood why she liked this mushy, orange, gloppy, mashed potato-impostor thing, called sweet potatoes.

These were my thoughts up until two weeks ago, when I had my first baked sweet potato. I was instantly addicted and wondered, “Why did I hate this amazing veggie so much?” It was simple, baked in the oven, cut open and served with a light sprinkling of butter and brown sugar. All of the objections I have to regular baked(and streamed) potatoes were gone. It was moist, flavorful, and nutritious. Since that eye-opening day, I embarked on a sweet potato craze. I have tried them in many forms(even pancake form), but my favorite so far has been Sweet Potato and Chorizo Tacos.

My sister found the recipe in the Sunset Magazine, and decided that we HAD to try it. We didn’t have chorizo on hand, so we substituted in a spicy sausage(not in link form, more like ground beef consistency) that we had in the freezer from a friend in Wyoming. Like I said before, they are amazing, and certainly have become a staple in our household.

Here is the recipe(from Sunset Magazine)

Ingredients

1 small white onion

1 medium orange-fleshed sweet potato (often labeled “yam”)

1 tablespoon canola oil

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 pound Mexican chorizo*, such as Silva brand, removed from casing

12 corn tortillas (6-in. diameter)

6 romaine lettuce leaves

1 lime, halved

2 ounces cotija (crumbly white Mexican cheese)* or feta

2 firm-ripe avocados

Preparation

1. Peel onion and sweet potato and dice into 1/2-in. cubes. Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onion, potato, and salt and cook until onion begins to soften, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook, stirring occasionally, until potato is just tender, 8 to 9 minutes.

2. Increase heat to medium-high and add chorizo. Cook, breaking up sausage with the back of a spoon, until cooked through, 7 to 8 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, heat tortillas in an oven or a microwave, or char over an open flame until warmed and softened. Wrap in foil or a clean kitchen towel to keep warm.

4. Stack and thinly slice lettuce; combine in a bowl with juice of a lime half and cotija. Halve, peel, pit, and thinly slice avocados; put in another bowl and toss with juice from remaining lime half.

For my English class innovation project my friends and I are documenting war stories from veterans. (I explain it in better detail in my Breakfast With Champions post.) We have a blog called http://breakfastwithchampions.wordpress.com/ and a Vietnam veteran named Jack White found our intro video on that blog and commented that he would love to meet with us. We met up with him this past weekend and he told us some amazing stories. It was great to hear from his perspective about things that my textbook could never tell me.

This blog post is a great way to talk about something that is so prevalent in both Christianity and the world today. I struggle with mentally categorizing people based off of a partial and fleeting view of them, instead of having a conversation with them to learn about who they are. But like many have said, hindsight is always 20/20. I loved Willow’s reply to my comment in which she said, “I need to be reminding myself more that I’m not God, apparently.” Isn’t that so true? How often do we go about judging others like books by their covers, when we have absolutely no right to. She is right, none of us are God, so let’s leave His job to him, as He does a darn good job. I mean it’s not like He created AND saved the world or anything. I think we can trust Him to do his job.

Someone once told me that the definition of a person can be found by examining what they talk about most. I had to ponder it for a while, until I saw the truth in what they had said. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, because I defined myself as a vastly different person with different values, than the one whom my friends would speak of based off of what I talked about most. Granted, I know there is more to a person’s characteristics and definition, per se, than JUST what they talk about, but it was still really interesting to think about. If I want to influence people, shouldn’t what I talk about be right on par with whom I want to be and am? My speech shouldn’t be filled with complaints, if I am really an optimistic and content person that just doesn’t voice my happiness as much as my complaints. If I consider myself a Christian, why don’t I talk about it more often?

The answer plain and simple is that I have a habit of putting God in a God box, only to be opened on Wednesdays and Sundays, and I pray that I am alone in this struggle and that everyone else is a pro at letting God be in every part of their lives, but I fear that is not the case. I compartmentalize my faith way too often, and it is like a sickness that needs a cure. I’m getting better about it, but there is no one time cure, it takes diligence and perseverance. Studies have shown that 70% of church attending Christians will graduate high school and stop attending church. Of that seventy percent, only half will return in their lifetime. What happens when that somewhat mandatory opening of the God box goes away? What happens when, now, the students can dictate their own lives and schedules? The God box get shoved in the back of the attic of life, right next to broken relationships and old forgotten passions.

Time goes on and they forget what a relationship with God is like, and decide that they can get on without one. And they never go back. Or they have a crisis that sends them searching for any semblance of who they used to be, and they find the God box, dusty after all those unopened years, and open it on a last resort. Hopefully, they rediscover the wonder and crave a relationship with Him again.

Both situations could be avoided, though, and that is the sad part. It is awful to think that there is a chance that we could save people from going through this, if we all just talked about our faith a little more. I’m not saying we need to introduce ourselves and say, “Hi! My name is ______. Have you heard about Jesus?” All I’m saying is that, at least for me, there are moments when I should be more open about my faith and welcome questions about it. I need to stop thinking about being labeled as a “Jesus Freak”, and just accept it. I would rather be sharing my faith and be called a Jesus Freak, then be quiet about it and still be thought of as a Jesus Freak because I don’t cuss, drink, or party and I go to church.

So what defines you? Is it what your friends would say as well? If is your faith? Or is it something else? Don’t let society be the first to define you, beat them to it and define yourself through your actions and words.

It’s 2014. Where has the time gone? I don’t really know, if anyone could tell me where my time, especially my free time, has gone please, do tell. Amidst the busyness of the Christmas Season, before the New Year, I have started to sit down and reflect on the past year and hope for the new one.

I say hope for the new year for two reasons. First, I don’t make resolutions because they are silly and end up getting broken by February (if you are lucky to make it that long). Why would we want to put extra stress and pressure on ourselves by making these lofty “resolutions” only to be disappointed and lose self-confidence when we break them? This might seem like a pessimistic view of resolutions, but it is not that I am against people deciding to make change in their lives. Change is good and crucial to life, but it seems a little absurd for people to try to change ten things about themselves at once. Why not focus on one thing at a time and not just starting at the beginning of a new year? Yes, we can “turn a new leaf” with the new year, but let’s not be a new leaf for a month, then go stale, then next year turn another new leaf, and start the process over again.

This year I made a list of thirteen memories of 2013 and fourteen hopes and prayers for 2014. It seemed like a doable thing this year, but if I make it a tradition, I’m going to have to get creative in 2045. I had trouble remembering thirteen individual things that happened this past year, Lord help me if I have to come up with forty-five in 2045.

Without further ado, here is my list of 13 Memories and 14 Hopes and Prayers.

Thirteen Memories of 2013

~Seeing my sister get baptized
~Camping in Zion National Park and hiking Angel’s Landing
~ Spending thanksgiving with friends and family
~ Getting accepted to all 5 if the schools I applied to via early action
~ Passing down my legacy after finishing 4 years of cross-country
~ Going on my first missions trip ever, to build a house for a family in Mexico
~ Going to the beach Christmas morning with my family and doing hand stands on the shore
~ Attending my last high school summer camp with my church
~ Cheering on my best friends as they raced in both track and cross country
~ Riding quads with my dad
~ Learning to make pillowcases with my sister
~ Riding bicycles to the beach with my mom
~ Finishing a year-long daily bible study of the entire New Testament

14 Hopes and Prayers for 2014
~ To be quiet more often, listen to both the silence and people
~ A relatively easy transition for my family when I leave for school
~ Take more pictures
~ Less scheduling, more spontaneity
~ God’s direction in schools, majors, life in general
~ Calculus gets easier and makes more sense
~ More time for outdoor adventures
~ Wear sunscreen everyday (every fair-skinned person’s mental goal)
~ Remember my priorities by not stressing out about the little things in life that don’t matter
~ Finish reading the Old Testament
~ Read more classics
~ Discover a new hobby/passion
~ Go on another missions trip
~ Treasure every moment